


Ornamementos

by Arej



Series: Ineffable Advent 2019 [17]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Idiots in Love, M/M, Other, Sentimental Aziraphale, Tattooed!Crowley, Unspoken Confessions, aziraphale is just as much of a sentimental sap as crowley, he just shows it a little less dramatically, they're not really male but it's m/m since i used male pronouns throughout, words are hard when you're an immortal being
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21843100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arej/pseuds/Arej
Summary: Day 17 of the amazing advent calendar of prompts.Crowley's tattoos aren't the only secret confession; Aziraphale has been building one of his own, one piece at a time.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Series: Ineffable Advent 2019 [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1561027
Comments: 29
Kudos: 237





	Ornamementos

“This is the last of them,” Aziraphale says as he carefully sets two tiny wooden boxes atop the towering pile. It’s been growing for the past hour as the angel began producing boxes from seemingly nowhere, tucked into shady corners and secret compartments across the bookshop. The pile is nearly as tall as he is, now, wide at the base and tapering upwards like a mockery of a tree in cardboard and pressboard and wood, with the occasional metal or ceramic box thrown in for color.

Crowley looks from the box tower to the empty tree twinkling in the corner. “Are you sure these will all fit?”

“Of course they will.”

“Have you done this before?”

Aziraphale, busy disassembling the box tree to get at something in particular, shoots him an exasperated glance. “You know I haven’t.”

Crowley surveys the scattered boxes again, seemingly even more now that they’re spread all over, sizes up the tree. 

“You may have to leave some off,” he warns.

“Absolutely not!” Aziraphale’s tone is scandalized from somewhere in the box pile. He’s knelt down amongst his treasures, and only the barest trace of cotton curls is visible. “Each and every one of these is precious to me. They’ll all fit.”

That last bit is authoritative; the tree in the corner seems to draw itself a half meter taller, like a solider standing to attention. Crowley tilts his head in cautious approval.

“Alright then,” he says, drawing his sleeves to the elbows. “Let’s get to work.”

He takes the box Aziraphale hands him, a delicately carved wooden thing, and pops the lid. Six shining red ornaments gleam up at him, each wrapped in a unique gold filigree, studded with tiny black and grey seed pearls. They’re both delicate and somehow fussy, and distinctly vintage.

“I thought you hadn’t done this before,” he accuses. The cotton curls tilt to reveal a quizzical angel face from behind a leaning box stack. “These are Victorian at the earliest.”

“Yes, well, I bought them then,” Aziraphale admits. “I’ve been keeping these for quite some time, all stored away.”

Crowley surveys the scattered boxes and bites back a smile. Trust his angel to collect what looks like hundreds of ornaments over - well, over hundreds of years - only to hide them away like secret treasures.

Treasures he’s sharing, now, and with intent. He’d been so very insistent that Crowley take part in this tree decorating business, despite the demon’s initial protests, that Crowley doesn’t even put up a fuss as he gets to it.

He hangs ornaments as Aziraphale passes them over; there is a surprising level of planning as to which ornament should come next, so Crowley leaves him to sort that bit out. He hangs ornaments without fuss or complaint or even _pretend_ complaint, because he’s too wrapped up in the process. He revels in the brush of hands as boxes are passed, the way Aziraphale occasionally comes to stand beside or behind him and survey the progress, the warmth in the angel’s gaze when their eyes meet. There is a brilliant smile lighting Aziraphale’s entire face, curling the edges of his mouth and setting his eyes to sparkling, and Crowley is quite enraptured by it.

They can have this, now. They can have shared glances and shared smiles and shared warmth - it radiates from his angel like an ethereal glow, or maybe that’s just the way his happiness sets off something deep in Crowley’s chest. Either way, he can have this; he can bask in it.

It’s the first winter, and the first Christmas - _their_ first! - after Armageddon’t, after that fateful night in this very room, after unspoken confessions and sweet relief. It is the first time Crowley has even remotely cared about celebrating - and they’re celebrating it all. There is a menorah on the mantle, a Yule log crackling away in the hearth below, and a whole host of other things Aziraphale has planned. He’s not really familiar with any of it; holidays, especially holidays about togetherness, have mostly been outside his purview. It was too difficult to care about those sorts of things, before - too painful. But now…

Now, it is his first Christmas, and Aziraphale’s, too, and they’re celebrating _together_.

Crowley looks down at the ornament in his hand, and feels his heart skip a beat. It may be nothing, but…

“Angel, is this an apple?”

“It is,” Aziraphale answers, stepping close. He trails one finger down the _Vanilla planifolia_ inked just below Crowley’s elbow. “I wondered when you’d notice.”

The words don’t register, at first; he’s too distracted by Aziraphale touching him like this: freely, willingly, openly. When they do, his gaze snaps from the delicate spun glass apple in his hand to the nearly full tree before them.

There, just above eye level - an oyster, crafted of shell and ceramic and pearl, hung absently while Crowley had watched Aziraphale sort boxes. There, down and to the left - a glass duck, passed gently from angelic hands. Just beside it, a delicately folded paper crepe nestles amongst the branches.

Crowley’s breath catches in his chest as he stares, eyes flicking from one thing to the next. Every ornament is a revelation: a tiny, working model guillotine. An unbroken row of animal pairs in painted ceramic. A stained glass window in miniature. A book satchel that is achingly familiar. A tiny black knight, complete with rounded visor. A replica of the Globe - the original.

Apples, shaped from glass and metal and wood. Ornate balls all in reds and golds and blacks. A scattering of ducks, actually, and -

Snakes.

Tiny, glittering snakes in wire and crystal; coiled, squeezing snakes wrapped around glass spheres; delicate snakes of brocade and embroidery; painted snakes with eyes picked out in gold leaf. Snakes of every size and configuration, but all unmistakably the same.

Aziraphale plucks the apple ornament from Crowley’s trembling hand, sets it aside, and curls his hand to rest along the _Theobroma cacao_ inked along the inside of Crowley’s forearm. His fingertips stretch to brush against the pulse fluttering in his wrist.

“It’s not so indelible as yours,” Aziraphale murmurs while Crowley stares. “But I’ve been hiding my own confession for quite a long time.”

It’s _him_. The ornaments, the entire tree - it’s him, it’s _them_. Their history, scattered amongst beautiful, delicate replicas of his snake self.

There, a model of the henket pot from their first shared drink, in Egypt. There, an origami unicorn. Apples peeking from between evergreen branches, intermingling with spheres of oxblood red and glittering, venomous gold. 

And snakes. Snakes, dark and glittering and sinuous, wrapping up and down the tree, each and every one with yellow eyes.

Aziraphale slips his hand down into Crowley’s, interlaces their fingers. “I love you.”

Crowley brings their joined hands to his mouth, presses his lips to the back of Aziraphale’s hand. It’s meant to be a brief kiss, but he holds it there, overwhelmed.

There is a confession here, spread out across a tree, every bit as sentimental as the one drawn and inked and colored across Crowley’s body. It has sat in boxes hidden in corners, tucked on shelves, kept away from prying eyes for so long - years, decades. Centuries, if the ages of these ornaments are anything to go by - and they are, of course they are, he knows his angel so well. This is _exactly_ the kind of magpie sentimentality his angel is best at.

There is a confession here, and he knows now why Aziraphale never decorated before, never celebrated before. Knows, now, why he’d insisted on doing this together, only to pass ornaments for Crowley to hang alone.

There is a confession here, because sometimes, words aren’t enough.

“You were so brave for us.” Aziraphale’s fingers tremble in Crowley’s unexpectedly rock steady grip. “So brave, even now. You wrote your love on yourself, carried it on your skin -”

“It was hidden,” Crowley objects, worried Aziraphale is holding himself to some impossible standard. Worried Aziraphale is placing him in too high of esteem. Worried Aziraphale is feeling like this miracle is somehow anything less than amazing. “They were -”

“I hid mine away, in boxes and corners. Hid them like shameful secrets.”

“It wasn’t safe.”

“It wasn’t safe for you, either, and -”

“Angel, don’t.” Crowley finally turns from the tree to face Aziraphale, devastated to find mist in his eyes, tear tracks on his face. He presses their joined hands tighter against his mouth, speaks into skin to press the words there, too. “We’re here now. We’re safe now. Nothing else matters.”

“You were so brave,” Aziraphale answers helplessly. “And I -”

“So were you.” Crowley drops their hands to gently cradle the angel’s face. “Hiding this. Keeping it safe, but _keeping_ it. So were you. So brave.”

He uses his thumbs to wipe away the angel’s tears, presses their foreheads together.

“I love you,” he whispers, and the words fill the space between them. “I love you so much.”

The smile he gets in return would be reward enough, but he gets more; Aziraphale leans up to kiss him, the faintest brush of lips to lips, and the world drops away.

There is a confession here; two of them, in fact, confessions given over years and decades and centuries. They have been built up in the safety of closed boxes and covered skin, secreted away from the prying eyes of the world.

There are two confessions here, and neither of them are secret anymore.


End file.
